Big Blue Ball
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Free Music Notes for Big Blue Ball
Free Music Review: Excellent New Material
Hit: 4 Stars
Rich textures and shared spotlight with many talented singers. Mid tempo upbeat world music. Similar to Afrocelts. Lots of Irish mixin with African and Arab. Not the dark Gabriel or the driving danceable Gabriel, but a mellow Gabriel with friends. It was so good I listened it to twice in a row.Free Music Review: Big Blue Ball
Hit: 4 Stars
If you like Peter Gabriel and like the music he's been putting out on his Real World label you'll love this. Good music and a great variety of artists. Recommended.Free Music Review: Big blue meh
Hit: 3 Stars
Peter Gabriel sat on these recordings for 18 years, I think, before getting around to having them produced and released properly. This history doesn't match the music inside. Nothing about "Big Blue Ball" feels grand or realized. It's all pretty hasty, underdeveloped, and lacking of a true centerpiece. There's probably a lot of pop/world music mesh ups out there that stand tall against this thoroughly average album. My bad...I liked "Up" so much and I honestly thought this album could compete with Peter Gabriel's best stuff.
It's easy to get excited about the personnel that chipped in to the project. You've got Tim Finn, Vernon Reid, Sinead O'Connor, Deep Forest, the dude from World Party, Gabriel himself, and a smattering of musicians from around the globe of whom I have never heard. Regardless of what you think of these musicians, they are big, notable names. But the sum of these parts only amounts to a curiosity. One song I liked was "Habibe," despite its length. Occasional stabs at pop just don't go anywhere. "Jijy" makes me snicker and the final track is a snore. I listened to this album several times but now I don't have any motivation to go back to it.
It's just too little too late. The reason this album didn't see the light of day for so long has to be the sub-par nature of the material. Why else would it have taken so long? Despite the long gestation period, the album still feels undercooked. I give it a `3' because everyone is keeping a steady beat, staying in tune, and generally playing their instruments pretty well. But at the end of the day, after such a long wait, that's about all I have to say about it.
Free Music Review: Peter Gabriel's big blue ball
Hit: 2 Stars
Having listened to the free samples, I can safely conclude that this figurative ball sack of songs is a mixed bag, as it were. The songs seem to be organized around the theme of being unable to satisfy one's deepest desire--hence, "Big Blue Ball"--and indeed, I walked away from the samples with a very real case of big blue balls (actually I merely rolled over). I wanted satisfaction but what I got only made me hurt more.
However this veritable mid-life crisis of world music is notable for highlighting the barbaric chants and whoopings of primitive countries, which lends the album a certain poignancy. I cannot listen to certain tracks without being filled with great sadness that luxuries as simple as margarine or 80/20 polyester blends have yet to reach most of the developing world.
In closing, I would advise Peter Gabriel to tackle a bigger subject next time--not to imply the size of Gabriel's own bullocks is somehow lacking, as I have no evidence despite years of unanswered fan letters in which this subject came up more than once.
Free Music Review: There is a reason...
Hit: 2 Stars
Things sometimes get put off for a reason. Lack of interest, better things to do, or just plain not worth the time or effort. This seems to be the result here. I will always support anything Peter Gabriel touches and my wife is an even bigger fan (she didn't like it either), but this pushes the bounds even for me. It is such a hodgepodge of varying styles that no flow is given to the work as a whole. There are maybe 2 or 3 tracks even worth a listen, Peter's and the haunting track by Sinead. Spend your money elsewhere.